About Professor Van de Ven

The Legacy of Andrew H. Van de Ven

Andrew H. Van de Ven was Professor Emeritus in the Carlson School of the University of Minnesota. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1972, and taught at Kent State Univ. and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania before that. He teaches courses on the management of innovation and change, organizational behavior, and engaged scholarship research methods. Van de Ven's books and journal articles over the years have dealt with the Nominal Group Technique, organization design and assessment, inter-organizational relationships, organizational innovation and change, and engaged scholarship research methods.

Andy had been studying changes unfolding in health care organizations and industry. During the 1980s he directed the Minnesota Innovation Research Program in which 30 faculty and doctoral students tracked fourteen different kinds of innovations from concept to implementation.

Andy was one of the preeminent scholars of organization and innovation around the world, with thirteen books and over 90,000 citations relating to his work. Additionally, Andy pioneered the tradition of engaged scholarship whereby academics engage with practitioners and policymakers to identify complex and consequential real-world problems and then collect and analyze relevant data over time in partnership with organizations to gain insights that are impactful and actionable.

We look forward to honoring Andy's work and his legacy here at the Carlson School.